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Financial Frontera: Delays on bridges cost region big money

by Michael Hissam / Guest columnist

Posted:
02/19/2012 12:00:00 AM MST

Bridge wait times continue to drive accounting, economic and opportunity costs -- and not for the better.

Nearly 15 years ago, riding in a bus full of investors looking to build in Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, the good vibrations continued until -- you guessed it -- northbound traffic came to a standstill near the monument on the other side of the Chamizal.

"I'll be damned if I am going to put my people through this every day," muttered someone the next row up. To the best of my knowledge, that person -- as with many others on the bus --never returned. The investment and jobs and ripple effect into the local economy went to parts unknown.

Earlier this month, Alan Russell, president and CEO of Tecma, based in El Paso, and a delegation of business, political and legal leaders took the wait-time concerns to Washington. They wasted no time putting costs to the issue, while encouraging the government and the public to do a better job in addressing the problem:

Q It is a pain to be waiting in those lines, but you're saying there's a big economic impact. Tell us more.

A It's amazing when you break it down into dollars and cents. Today, border wait times at the five busiest southern ports of entry average over one hour. The economic impact is amazing. This results in an average output loss of a $116 million dollars per minute of delay. In 2008, these delays cost the U.S. economy nearly 26,000 jobs and $6 billion in output; $1.4 billion in wages and $600 million in tax revenue.

By 2017, average wait times will probably increase to 100 minutes or more, costing the U.

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S. more than 54,000 jobs, $12 billion in output, $3 billion in wages and $1.2 billion lost tax revenue annually. This is not some local study. This is from the Department of Commerce and a 2008 study.

Q Who went with you from El Paso to deliver that very strong message?

A Mayor John Cook from El Paso headed the delegation along with the Greater El Paso Chamber Chairman Chuck Harre, and Chamber President Richard Dayoub and two of the chamber's very capable staff; additionally El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar, and Kathleen Walker and Jack Chapman, two very prominent El Paso lawyers who deal in border issues; 10 of us in all.

Q With whom did you meet in the nation's capital?

A We started with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, then we went to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on to the Department of Homeland Security; we went to Sen. Tom Udall's office, senator to New Mexico; and the final was the Department of Commerce.

Q What specific cost areas did you present?

A Our focus was truck crossing times, pedestrian crossing times, visa processing times and what these delays cost, as I mentioned before, in real dollars.

Q Others have tried to send the message over the years to the governments, both in Washington and in Mexico City. But taking a look at this effort, to what extent do you believe progress was made?

A It was Washington, we have to take the approach that it is one voice and one ear at a time. It is hard to measure the success of these type meetings, I admit, but we must be persistent. We must assure with every security measure established on this border that commerce is taken into account. I will say that every office I mentioned gave us their full attention and listened to what we had to say. However, the raw facts: Physical security trumps economic security and no greater is that division evident than when we are in an election year.

Q You mention the community, this border community, over one city, the two cities across from each other, El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, if it were one city in the U.S., it would be in the top five or six in population. We know about the economic and trade data, but when it comes to those border crossing issues for the commercial and noncommercial sectors -- then what's the answer, what did your group suggest be done to alleviate this problem?

A I don't think we will ever alleviate it; I've got to be realistic. We are 26 years into this from my perspective alone, and in some cases we are talking about the same things over and over. However, progress is being made with the one ear at a time that I mentioned.

First, we use the facilities that we have more efficiently. Technology has evolved. The bridges and ports of entry that we have were never designed to facilitate the kind of commerce that we are seeing today. We have the technology to improve what we have without going to the expense of brick and mortar.

Homeland Security, very proactive, I was impressed. They've made improvements; they have added security measures and fast lanes that we are not taking advantage of. In El Paso alone we are down in the 30 percent utilization of some of the capacities of these programs they've put in place. There's a system called the Pedestrian Gate System at the Bridge of the Americas, Ready Lanes in all three bridges and others. We have got to get the word out. We've got to educate the public and the importers who are using the bridges to use them more efficiently through the facilities that we have and we must improve the technology.

Michael Hissam is president of Trans-National Executive Communications. He may be reached at michael.tnec@ymail.com.

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